We're so back
But can someone tell me who the real Agent Argylle is, please?
Hello friends! After almost 1.5 years away, I am back, for… no reason in particular. Let’s get into it.
Who is the real Agent Argylle?
Part of why I abandoned Amy Explains for so long was because I adapted a new (what is probably healthy) mentality to pick my online battles. When I see some tomfoolery abrewing on Twitter, I’m very selective about whether or not I want to dig further.
So last year, when I saw that a random, unreleased spy thriller novel was trending because people were claiming that Taylor Swift ghost wrote it, I thought to myself, “That is none of my business,” and promptly logged off.
Fast-forward to today, when I have discovered that, it actually is sort of my business, given that I have seen the trailer for the upcoming movie “Argylle,” approximately 73 times.
If you have miraculously avoided the previews for this film, here’s the Google synopsis:
Reclusive author Elly Conway writes best-selling espionage novels about a secret agent named Argylle who's on a mission to unravel a global spy syndicate. However, when the plots of her books start to mirror the covert actions of a real-life spy organization, the line between fiction and reality begin to blur.
The movie — directed by Matthew Vaughn and starring Henry Cavill, Dua Lipa and Bryce Dallas Howard — premieres this week. I would also just like to say, for the record, this movie looks bad.
*Kanye West voice*: I like some of the [Dua Lipa] songs, what the f*ck does she know about [international spy thrillers]???
If you have been to the movies, watched TV, been on YouTube or gone outside anytime within the last 365 days, surely you have also seen the “Argylle” trailer. I have no idea what their marketing budget is, but I’d guess it’s at least, I don’t know, $1 billion based on how much advertising there has been for this flick.
But aside from the deluge of trailers and billboards plastered across the internet and country, “Argylle” has pulled an even larger marketing scheme, years in the making that yes, sort of, ties back to Taylor Swift.
This Vox article does a good job breaking down the situation, but if you want a chronological version of this whole thing, here we go:
It’s June 2021 and director Matthew Vaughn ( known for “Kick-Ass,” the “Kingsmen” franchise, a few “X-Men” movies) announces that he and his production company are working on a new movie called “Argylle.”
A few months later, the star-studded cast is announced, and Apple buys the rights to the movie for a whopping $200 million. Deadline reports that the movie is based on a soon-to-be published debut novel from author Elly Conway. Conway’s book, also titled “Argylle” is being published by a division of Penguin Random House.
A year later, in September 2022, The Hollywood Reporter starts digging in to Elly Conway’s background to discover, there is none? “Argylle” the novel was slated to publish Sept. 29, 2022 but was pushed back to March 2023. Director Matthew Vaughn is gushing over this supposedly wonderful script and Apple is banking big bucks on what could possibly be the next big spy franchise based on Conway’s upcoming thriller. Meanwhile, The Hollywood Reporter cannot find an Amazon page for the book, zero internet results for Conway, zero mention of Conway on Penguin Random House’s website and an Instagram page with only nine followers.
Another year later, fall of 2023, “Argylle” the book still has not published, but the full trailer for the movie has.
The trailer shows Elly Conway as a character within the movie. So this movie is actually a meta retelling of the “Argylle” novel, where Conway meets and interacts the characters she’s written. Vaughn describes the story as “I love the idea of what would happen if J.K. Rowling met a wizard and was real.” To make things even more confusing, Vaughn also reveals that “Argylle” the movie is based on book four of the “Argylle” book series. At this point in time none of the “Argylle” books have published, and only the first one has a set publication date.
In yet another bizarre twist, using only logic that Swifties can conjure up, a few TikTokers start to hypothesize that Elly Conway is actually, Taylor Swift. Yes, apparently in between touring the globe, writing a new album, rereleasing old albums, dating a British loser, dating another British loser except this one was racist, and then dating a nice normal guy thank god, she had time to write a four-book spy thriller series.
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Enable 3rd party cookies or use another browserEvidence for why Elly Conway could be Taylor Swift include: Taylor loves argyle print clothing, Bryce Dallas Howard’s portrayal of movie-version Elly Conway resembles Taylor’s character at the end of the "All Too Well” short film, Taylor has a similar looking cat to the one in the movie, Taylor has a similar looking cat backpack to the one used in the movie, Taylor loves using pseudonyms.
OK, this is extremely implausible. Though that doesn’t stop scores of Swifties from pre-ordering the book. Since then, Bryce Dallas Howard has officially stated that Taylor Swift was not involved at all in “Argylle.”
Skip to, this month! “Argylle” the book has finally, FINALLY published. But the question remains: Who is Elly Conway? And is the “Argylle” series real?
A recent Washington Post investigation answers both of those questions. Here’s what reporter Sophia Nguyen says: “To me, this is the most plausible scenario: The novelist character in Vaughn’s movie is named Elly Conway. Marv Studios, Vaughn’s production company, probably decided to commission someone to write Elly’s novel in full as a work-for-hire, which they would publish as a cutesy tie-in — akin to Marvel publishing Ant-Man’s “memoir.” … In this account, the Swiftie speculation over Elly’s identity was just a happy accident that no one was interested in debunking.”
Nguyen also digs around to discover that Conway is likely a pseudonym for British author Tammy Cohen. Cohen has previously written several spy novels, has a loose connection to director Matthew Vaughn and was recently in contact with someone thanked in the acknowledgments in “Argylle.”
Anyways, all of this was a real doozy. And quite frankly an absurdly convoluted, long-game marketing strategy for a movie that looks like it’s going to gross $7 at the box office.
Sydney Sweeney babe what is going on
I’ll let you watch the below videos if you want to learn more, but some eagle-eyed TikTokers have caught actress Sydney Sweeney in a bizarre lie: That she worked as a Universal Studios tour guide while she was in high school.
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For the uninitiated, being a Universal Studios tour guide involves giving a 45-minute guided tram tour through the backlots of the amusement park/working movie studio. You have to know everything about Universal forwards and back: memorizing a very long script, but also being able to improvise when the tour stalls (which happens quite often, given that they’re navigating through actual changing movie sets).
The above TikToker notes that in order to become a tour guide, you must go through weeks of rigorous interviews, studying and testing to even be given a chance at the coveted job. So it’s definitely not the kind of gig a high schooler could casually pick up to make extra money. And because it’s a very coveted/public facing job, surely there would be evidence of Sweeney leading tours, whether it be photos or Universal employees that could back her up.
Below is a clip of Sweeney being extremely evasive while talking about her alleged time at Universal.
And then here’s her doing it again on the Kelly Clarkson show.
This whole lie originated in a throwaway line in a Women’s Health article, so one can’t help but wonder why she hasn’t just shut this rumor down yet, or at least lied about having a different job.
Alright that’s it for today, let me know if there are any topics I should cover in the coming weeks!